The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Wednesday waived the daily cash withdrawal limit of N1 million for some customers of? Primary Mortgage Institutions (PMIs) and Microfinance Banks (MFBs).
?A circular by Mr Giaus Emokpae, Assistant Director (Banking and Payment System) in the CBN, said that the waiver was due to the nature of their businesses.
“It has come to our notice that some Deposit Money Banks apply cash withdrawal/deposit limits for corporate organisations to PMIs and MFBs.
?“PMI and MFBs are specialised banks under the new banking model which have customers that maintain savings demand and time deposit accounts with them.
“As deposit-taking institutions, they are obliged to honour the withdrawal requests of their customers and other deposit obligations.
“It is imperative to note that the aggregate withdrawal by the depositors of MFBs and PMIs per day could exceed N1 million.
“Thus necessitating those institutions to withdraw over N1 million from their correspondent banks in order to service their customers,” the circular said.
?It stressed that by this directive, withdrawal and deposit by microfinance banks and primary mortgage institutions had been excluded from the policy of N1 million limits for corporate bodies.
The CBN, however, said that the cash withdrawal and deposit limits were applicable to customers of MFBs and PMIs.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the cash withdrawal limit policy started in Lagos on Jan 1 and will be extended to other states by June.
Under the directive, individuals are not allowed to withdraw more than N150,000 per day while withdrawal by corporate organisations should not exceed N1 million.
The objective is to reduce business transactions with cash. (NAN)?